Our Home Is Each Other
by MauMauKa
Summary: Chris faces death. Can Gordie tell him how he feels before it's too late?


**A/N: My Muse has terrible timing. I'm in the middle of a move, I have tons to do at work because it's the beginning of the month, and she won't stop talking. Any errors you find below will be due to simple exhaustion.**

**This is A/U—Chris survives the knife attack. Vern and Teddy are still alive, too. It also references an earlier **_**Stand By Me**_** story of mine. Hope it gives some enjoyment. I own nothing. Feedback without flames please!**

**"Our Home is Each Other"**

_**Gordie—POV**_

"You wet. You fucking wet end"

Chris didn't answer. The machines he was hooked up to whirred and beeped. He was in a coma, but I wanted to believe he could hear me.

"You just had to get involved, didn't you? Always being everyone's big brother."

I sighed heavily as I sat down on the chair next to his bed. It was a miracle he was alive. He had lost so much blood that the doctors still weren't sure how it might have affected the oxygen to his brain. He had tried to break up a fight at a McDonalds and one of the participants had stabbed him in the throat. If it hadn't been for the quick thinking of the restaurant employees, who called the paramedics and held a towel over the wound until they got there, or if the blade hadn't missed his carotid by a scant few millimeters, Chris would be a dead man now. As it was, it was touch and go.

I looked down at his pale face, trying to see my best boyhood friend in the man he'd become. Some of him was still there: the same light brown hair, the same freckles across the bridge of his nose. Same muscular build. The lines at the corners of his eyes were new, and there were threads of silver scattered here and there throughout his hair. I envied him; mine started falling out when I was still in my twenties. His neck was swathed in a thick bandage and tube ran down his throat to help him breathe.

His room was deserted, even though it was still visiting hours. He had married and divorced a couple of times, but didn't have any children. A card from his law office stood on the table next to his bed but there were only a few signatures on it. I wondered where his friends were.

"Goddamn it, you better live through this!" I told him. "I have a lot to say and you don't get to float off into the ozone before I do. The first is that I'm gonna look after you. You don't have to worry about anything. You'll come home with me, or I'll move in with you until you're on your feet again. The second is I'm sorry."

_**Chris—POV**_

I'm running down the Back Harlow Road. Gordie and Teddy and Vern are all trying to keep up with me. It's summer and I'm twelve and I can do anything. We're on an adventure and no one can stop us. We're going somewhere. And when we get there…

"Slow down, Chris!" their voices call from behind me. I laugh and keep flying, no one can catch me! But someone steps into my path. "Yeah, Chambers. Slow down."

I pull up short. Ace Merrill is in front of me, his foot propped on a tree stump. "What the hell do _you_ want?" I demand, feeling a lot less brave than I sound. "Hold up you guys!" I shout over my shoulder.

The guys aren't there.

No one's there. It's just Ace and me standing under the late summer trees. He laughs and unrolls a pack of cigs from the sleeve of his t-shirt. "That's what I was gonna ask you, Chambers."

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. You have a choice. What do you want? Really want?"

I have no idea how to answer. Ace shakes his head at me. "Don't know? That's a shame. Most of us don't get to pick when we go. I didn't. Bang-bang and it was all over." He made a gun with his fingers and pointed it at me. "Just like that day out here, except coke dealers aren't as pussy as you and your little girlfriends."

"Here's the deal, Chambers. You see the river?" Ace went on, nodding in the direction of the Royal. I could see it cruising slowly past us, light sparkling on its surface. "You want to quit, to call game over, you get into the water and make for the other side. You want to go home, you turn back around and get out of here."

"Wait a minute, you mean I'm _dead?" _I looked down at my twelve-year-old body and am blown away to see a suit—a nice suit— covering a body that is many years older than twelve. I have a briefcase in my hand. It looks expensive.

"Not exactly I'm kind of like the gatekeeper" Ace said. "I can let you by, but you gotta choose it." He blew a cloud of smoke in my face. "I owe you a debt and this is how I'm paying. "

"For what?" I couldn't remember Ace Merrill owing me anything but shiners.

"I hurt you; I hurt your friends and family, but that day you saw my father beat the crap out of me, you asked if I was gonna be okay." His gazed softened a little. "Nobody ever asked me that. Not one person in my whole life, except you. So here I am. Choose."

When I didn't, Ace tossed his cig onto the road and ground it out with the heel of his motorcycle boot. "C'mon, Chambers, I ain't got all day. Either you want to jump off the ride or you don't. Do you have anything or anyone to stay for? Any unfinished business?"

I thought about it and little pieces came back to me: my ex-wives, my college buddies, Don Freeman from my office. Teddy and Vern. Gordie…

_Gordie_. The thoughts careening around in my head suddenly stopped, like a compass needle when it points north. I could see his thin twelve-year-old face with its huge, solemn hazel eyes. I could see Gordie telling his stories; Gordie patiently explaining geometric proofs to me for the billionth time; Gordie pulling that leech off his balls; telling his father nothing was going to make him stop being my friend. Gordie with the gun pointed at Ace's head, forcing him to back down.

"Yeah, he was a brave little bastard" Ace said softly, reading my mind. Somehow, it didn't surprise me that he could. "When he pulled that shit with the gun, I was fucking impressed, even though I was also mad as hell. But there's one thing he never told you."

"What?" I asked warily.

Ace grinned. "You want to know that, you have to go back and ask. Is that what you want? If it is, you better hurry up and tell me. Time's getting short, and he's waiting for you."

I thought about it. The Royal River flowed serenely by. The water looked cool and inviting and I knew that once I went in, there would be peace. Peace forever. But I was still seeing Gordie's face in my mind. This time he looked older, more like he'd looked when we graduated from high school. He'd filled out by then and his hair was longer, grown out from that stupid bowl haircut his parents made him wear. His eyes were just the same, though: deep and soft and when he gazed at me I felt myself blush.

I looked at Ace. "I have to go back."

"Thought so." And with that, Ace Merrill stood up walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder. He smacked the palm of his other hand into the center of my chest and I flew backwards into darkness.

_**Gordie—POV**_

"I'm sorry we drifted apart" I took Chris' limp hand in mine. His skin was dry and rough but the shape of it, the way his fingers felt _right_ in mine, hadn't changed at all. "I met other people. And you met other people. And I could feel you moving away from me and I didn't even try to stop you. I was _glad!_ Glad you got out of Castle Rock, glad you were meeting people who weren't going to judge you for being one of Elton Chambers' kids. I wanted you to have everything you ever wanted, and if that meant leaving me behind, then so be it. Fucking noble, right?" I shook my head. "I was so goddamn stupid. Nothing was the same after you left; there was a huge hole where you used to be, and I wouldn't let myself know it. I got married, had two kids, and got divorced. I wrote books and liked writing books, but..." I took a deep breath and tried to keep my voice from shaking. "I missed you, Chris. I missed you so much." I felt tears prickle my eyes. I should have said all this years ago of course, but how could I? Chris had moved on, and I knew it was for the best. Now he was on the edge of moving completely out of my orbit. I kissed his knuckles gently. "Come back." I whispered. "Please man, just come back."

Chris's fingers twitched. I jerked my head up to stare at him. His eyes had opened a tiny crack. I didn't know if it was some kind of weird nerve reaction or if it was really a breakthrough. Cautiously, I squeezed his hand and he returned the pressure, although it was pretty weak. His eyes opened a little wider and rolled sideways to look at me and he tried to smile around the tube down his throat. I nearly fell over my own feet running for the nurses' station. "He's awake!" I yelled. "Somebody get a doctor in here!"

In minutes, Chris' bed was surrounded and I'd been pushed into the hallway. I sat there for what seemed like three centuries until the doctor came out. "Are you a family member?" she asked.

I shook my head.

"Is there any member of his family I could talk to?"

"No". It wasn't exactly true, but I didn't exactly see Eyeball swooping in to the rescue. The last any of us had heard, he was serving time at Shawshank for assault with a deadly weapon.

The doctor looked at me closely and tilted her head. "Are you Mr. Chambers' roommate?"

I opened my mouth to say no and then I realized what she was _really_ asking. "Yes" I said, thinking fast. "Yes I am." If it would help Chris, I was willing to lie. And who was to say it wouldn't end up being true anyway?

She nodded and pulled a pen from her clipboard. "Your name, sir?"

"Gordon Lachance."

She wrote it down. "Well, Mr. Lachance, your friend was VERY lucky. It's too early to tell if there's any long-term damage to his brain from the blood loss, but his reflexes are good and he was able to tell me his name and the current year. We've got him stabilized and he's breathing on his own, but he's going to be too weak to talk much and there's been some damage to his vocal cords so you may find it hard to understand him at first. You can go in now. He wants to see you."

I went in and sat down beside the bed. Chris was propped up with even more bandages on his neck and chest. He smiled and his eyes were bluer than the sky at noon. "Gordie, you retard!" he said in a raspy voice. "What're you doing here?"

"I came as soon as I heard. Vern called me."

"Good old Verno."

"Yeah." We grinned at each other."When you get well, I'm gonna give you the worst fucking indian burn you ever had in your life!" I told him. "What the hell did you think you were doing?"

He shrugged a little. "I thought I could stop it."

"Well _they_ damn near stopped _you. _For good."

"I know." We continue to grin stupidly at each other. "And if you ever do something that dumb again, ya morphidite, I'll kill you myself!" I promised.

"You're welcome to try, Lachance."

I flipped him the bird and he laughed and then winced. "Shit. So when did you get here? The doc told me I've been out for almost a week."

"About eight hours ago. I got a night flight."

"You got a room? 'Cause if you do, cancel it. My keys should be in the nightstand drawer. Just put your stuff in the guest bedroom. How long can you stay?"

"How long do you you want me?"

"For the rest of my life" he said softly. "How does that sound to you, Gordie?"

"It sounds great."

"Really?"

"Yup" I took his hand in mine again. "Really."

Boy, you want to talk about someone's smile lighting up a room? Let's just say that I'm grateful not to be blind right now.

_**EPILOGUE-4 YEARS LATER**_

Chris got well. It took a lot of hard work; his vocal cords never completely healed and when he was very tired, he sometimes just wrote things down on sticky notes and handed them to me. I moved into his apartment on Lake Shore drive in Chicago and I've been there ever since. My kids have been okay with it. They like Chris-think he's the cat's ass, in fact. God help me if he and I disagree on anything when they visit! The little buggers always side with "Uncle Chris". Even my ex-wife Joanie likes him. "You're good together" she observed one time when she and the kids joined us for a week at the lake cottage that I bought in Maine. "You seem so much more relaxed and happy, and I can tell that he really loves you."

Now we're at the cottage again, sitting on the dock behind the house and watching the sky turn pink as the day ends. Teddy and Vern and his wife and kids are coming over for hamburgers and hot dogs. The cottage is only half an hour from Castle Rock. We hope to get Teddy to go home before he starts telling the kids about "Corporal Duchamp and the Epic Battle of the Leeches." The last time he did it, Vern's kids all had nightmares for a week.

I'm happy. I like to think that Chris is, too. He's sitting behind me, holding me the way he likes to do, with his chin propped on top of my head. Just two middle-aged guys sitting the way most middle-aged guys won't even sit with their wives of ten, twenty, or thirty years. Neither of us plans to leave home ever again, and our home is each other.


End file.
